How does a friendly person like Helnwein stand making his - excellent - painting into a mirror of the terrors of this century? Or is it that he can't stand not doing it? Does his mirror just reflect the attitude of the century?

Heiner Muller, East German author of Hamletmachine and Medea, was the preeminent German successor of Bertholt Brecht at the end of the twentieth century. In this collection of essays, stories, and interviews conducted by Sylvere Lotringer, Muller reflects on the laws of history from the standpoint of someone straddling the Berlin Wall. Muller saw the wall as both repression and protection of his compatriots from the inevitable triumph of capitalism. His work evokes the wit and compactness of Brecht, with an added psychotropic dimension. Haunted by World War II, Muller was a leading figure in European contemporary literature, whose writing anticipates a future beyond the bipolarity of twentieth-century politics.